Simplicity

 Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, 

but when there is nothing left to take away.

If your mind is anything like mine, it sometimes races forwards and backwards anticipating the problems to come and rehashing the past.  Of course this takes away the pleasure of the present moment, such as listening to an opera or trying to sleep at 3 am. 

Living in the moment sounds easy, but observing non-judgmentally as life unfolds is hard, especially  with all the distraction and exhaustion of technology and city living. It's no wonder that practicing "mindfulness" is becoming trendy these days. The New Yorker Magazine recently published a tongue-in-cheek article on "enlightenment" Silicone Valley style.  Click Here.

There's even a Mindful Magazine, sort of a companion to that fat, advertisement-stuffed Simplicity Magazine you see at the supermarket.  I subscribe to Mindful, but I don't think I'm getting my money's worth. Ha.

The excerpt below is from Thoreau's writings while he was living at Walden Pond.  While most of us can't spend the entire morning sitting in the doorstep gazing at Nature, how about this idea of keeping your troublesome "affairs" down to a short list of two or three?  



"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as
two or three, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail …

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time.
To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome
and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the
companion that was so companionable as solitude …
If one advances confidently in the direction of his
dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has
imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in
common hour …

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener.
So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.
We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and
took advantage of every accident that befell us. Sometimes, in
a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my
sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the
pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and
stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through
the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the
noise of some traveller’s wagon on the distant highway, I was
reminded of the lapse of time."

From, Walden
Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau house replica, Walden Pond

The aftermath

At the posh West Seattle Nursery just down the street a 5-gallon pot of bamboo will set you back about 50 bucks.

I looked around at the fallen forest of giant bamboo and said to Bruce, "Are we rich now?"
Well, no.
At least not in bamboo.

Oh, such a heartbreaking sight.  But on the bright side,  none of that gorgeous bamboo went into the municipal compost dump.  Bruce posted a "free bamboo" notice on Craig's List Friday afternoon and that did the trick. It was all hauled off and replanted somewhere else. My living legacy to the Puget Sound region.  I'd call that job security for the Seattle Bamboo Removal Company. 

Share the wealth

Soon the trucks starting pulling up in the alley and by Saturday noon it was almost gone-- a steady, quiet feeding frenzy of free bamboo. 

And like all smorgasbords, the eyes are sometimes bigger than the stomach...

Hey fellas, don't you want that stuff pointing the other direction?  Good luck with that. Self-service only.  We stayed in the house peering through the window.  But I'm glad I didn't have to ride in that pick-up cab down the freeway behind a waving curtain of bamboo.

So, it looks like a war zone around here. But I'm reminding myself this is rock bottom, as ugly as it will ever look again and things can only improve from here.  Bruce and the girls will be back one more time to finish up digging the roots and even things out. And of course, pick up their check.

The war ends, now time to think about reconstruction.  We have a clean slate to work with which is kind of a novel feeling.  All-City Fence Company will be out on Wednesday to give me a bid. A new fence is the first priority.

Maybe something along these lines, with civilized shrubs and flowering vines?

Bamboo??
Been there, done that.

So it goes

"All great changes are preceded by chaos"

Deepak Chopra

The bamboo removal crew started on the big stand yesterday and should finish up today. They're taking down the fence to expose and pry out as many roots as possible.  The fence is no big loss since the posts were rotted out anyway. But it's a weird feeling having our little private garden sanctuary exposed to the busy alley.  Now the Urban Village can walk by, peer in and admire the yard. If I were more of a show-offy person instead of a garden recluse, I guess I'd enjoy that.  

Anyway, it's all temporary (what isn't?) and the fence contractor is coming next week to see what he can do for us.  Obviously we'll never have a massive vegetation screen again, but a 6-foot fence will make all the difference. Right now it just feels weird, but I think I'll get used to the new space and light.   Not to mention all the time it frees up to do other things in the garden.   The bamboo was an astonishing amount of work and mess. Of course I'm not done yet, and will battle the rhizomes for the foreseeable future.

The weather has cooled off to a lovely 75-80 degrees.  I wish it wasn't quite so dry, but in every other was this has been a spectacular summer.  We got the latest water bill, and the Earth is still spinning.  Life goes on, summer is starting to wind down.  The mornings are noticeably cooler and darker. On Sunday we go the the first opera of the season, a reminder that fall is just around the corner.

Harold Knight

The Morning Sun

Happy birthday, Tennyson

Winslow Homer

"Moonlight"

Today is the birthday of the Victorian poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson (1806-1892.) During his lifetime he was one of the most famous people in England, and many of his phrases became common sayings in the English language:

"Nature, red in tooth and claw"
"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"
 "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die"
"My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure"
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield"
 "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers"
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new"

Who knew?
Here's a sweet and sad poem called "Tears, Idle Tears."

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.    Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.    Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.    Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more! Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Dog days

On the whacky holiday calendar August 5th is Work Like a Dog Day.  Anyone who has ever held a job knows that some people skate by doing as little as possible while others "work like a dog."  Today is a day to show appreciation for those who carry more than their load.

We're wrapping up the dog days of summer, the hottest period between July 3 and August 11.  The phrase refers to the rising of Sirius the dog star in the constellation Canis Major at sunrise.  The "dog days" association goes all the way back to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. In the Mediterranean region it was a time of disease and discomfort.   From Homer:

 Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky
On summer nights, star of stars,
Orion's Dog they call it, brightest
Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat
And fevers to suffering humanity.

Well, not for some lucky dogs...

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodnight

It was a long, hot, busy weekend in Seattle.  And yesterday was a long and not-so-hot day for me.  But it's over.  

Speaking of "over" the bamboo removal crew was out last week and started on this one. It's been growing next to (and into) the garage for 30+ years.

My parents might remember the bamboo they planted alongside their house in Bremerton in 1980. This is actually a piece of their original.  I told Bruce (my bamboo expert) that I was thrilled at the time to get a "free" plant for our new house.  That got a good laugh.  "Ha, ha, ha!"  Probably all the way to the bank with his big check.

OK, it goes like this. The first step is sawing into the ground all around the base of the plant. Then through the base to divide it up into chunks.  Bamboo has surprisingly shallow roots (it's grass) but they're as dense as cement.

After that, the poor thing is wrenched out of the ground out without ceremony, using a steel lever and lots of muscle. None of this is as easy as it looks.  Bamboo is a wily organism with incredible survival skills, so it requires finesse as well as brute strength.

The "mother" plant is gone, but the rhizomes are not.  You can see the mess of roots that have been growing inside the shed wall for years and years.

The bamboo girls went to work digging as many roots as they could from the hole and pulling them out of the walls. 

Getting all the rhizomes would require digging up the entire yard, since they've spread many feet out in all directions.  With the main plant gone, all these rhizomes will sprout and become new plants.  But if I keep them cut back, they lack nourishment and will eventually give up.  At least that's the idea. Bruce could not say how many years this takes, only that it's "doable" if you are persistent  If not, he is happy to come back and dig them all out. 

The chic, Seattle-style bamboo crew.  Sorry John, you were at work and missed it.

But they will be back later this month-- all of this still has to go. 

A sad sight or a clean slate?  It depends on my mood of the day..